Neil Young
Live at the Fillmore East

March 6 & 7, 1970

For years, Neil Young has been taunting his fans with the
prospect of releasing material from his vast archive of concert recordings.
Live at the Fillmore East, which curiously is labeled as the second disc in
his newly inaugurated performance series, sufficiently signals that the long
wait finally is over. Culling its selections from a pair of shows that were held
over the course of two nights in March 1970 at Bill Graham’s esteemed New York
City venue, the set holds few surprises though, considering that it features the
original incarnation of Crazy Horse, it fulfills all of its inherent promise.

Much as he has done throughout his career, Young was in the process of
vacillating between an array of wildly divergent projects. In the span of the
preceding two years, he had left Buffalo Springfield, released his self-titled
solo debut, and created Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere, the first of
many collaborations with Crazy Horse. In the coming months, he would join David
Crosby, Stephen Stills, and Graham Nash on Deja Vu and travel back to his
singer/songwriter-oriented roots on After the Gold Rush. In fusing three
tracks that wouldn’t appear on record for years (Winterlong, which was
featured on the 1977 retrospective Decade; Wonderin’, which didn’t
surface until his 1983 outing Everybody’s Rockin’; and guitarist Danny
Whitten’s Come on Baby Let’s Go Downtown, which was covered in tribute on
the harrowing memorial Tonight’s the Night) with a trio of selections
from Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere, it’s not surprising that Live at
the Fillmore East: March 6 & 7, 1970 jumps all over the place, sometimes
awkwardly so. Nevertheless, the quintet of Young, Whitten, bass player Billy
Talbot, drummer Ralph Molina, and pianist Jack Nitzsche held everything together
by transforming even the jangly country-rock fare into edgy, molten sludge. On
Wonderin’ and Winterlong, in particular, the primitive, visceral
framework supplied by the band barely contained the jagged, wriggling guitars of
Young and Whitten.

Even so, of the six tracks on Live at the Fillmore East: March 6 & 7, 1970,
only two of the selections — elongated renditions of Down by the River
and Cowgirl in the Sand — truly matter, though they also compose the bulk
of the set. Within their fiery, tangled refrains, one can hear the seeds being
sown that later would take root in the careers of Sonic Youth, Dinosaur, Jr.,
and Television. On the former tune, Young caused his guitar to bend, twist, and
wind its way through Crazy Horse’s chugging blues-baked groove as the ensemble
collectively conjured an aural image of the song’s turbulent lyrics. Cowgirl
in the Sand was even better. Forsaking a clean tone for one that was laden
with distortion, Young’s guitar sliced like a rusty buzz saw, emitting an
anguished cry as it cut through the ominous, steady-rolling charge of his
backing band. Yet, this was more than just a showcase for his soloing, and the
group accentuated the music’s tormented mood by propelling it in a slow but
deliberate march toward Young’s whirling, steely blade.

As Live at the Fillmore East: March 6 & 7, 1970 draws to its
conclusion, the audience can be heard filing out of the venue to the soothing
strains of James Taylor’sSweet Baby James. It’s a nice touch that helps
establish the environment in which Young and Crazy Horse’s intense
improvisations were made. In the end, Live at the Fillmore East: March 6 & 7,
1970 is so short — the sum total of the outing is a mere 43 minutes long —
that it feels like a tease. Yet, in distilling the concerts down to their most
riveting moments, the raw power of the band’s performance is both highlighted
and magnified in such a superlative fashion that fans undoubtedly will be left
waiting with bated breath for the next installment of the series.